Britain's David Will is set to play a leading role on the team which will investigate Fifa's finances - an investigation that threatens the very future of their president Sepp Blatter.

The Scot, who is a Fifa vice-president, will be the European representative on the six-man audit committee which will look into the handling of the collapse of the world governing body's former marketing partners ISL last year.

Blatter suffered a serious defeat at Thursday night's emergency executive committee meeting when he was forced to give up his attempts to prevent an investigation being set up.

Six Fifa members, one from each confederation, will be appointed to the investigation panel.

The chairman of the committee will be appointed by the other members, and Will's reputation for scrupulous honesty makes him a leading candidate for the task.

The bankruptcy of ISL, a subsidiary of the International Sports Media and Marketing group which negotiated Fifa's television and sponsorship deals, led to the cancellation of last year's World Club Championship in Spain.

It also forced Fifa to set up its own in-house marketing unit. Blatter insists the collapse cost Fifa around £22m, but there have been claims the true damage could be as much as 10 times that.

There have also been claims that Blatter has borrowed around £300m on the basis of the projected income from the 2006 World Cup.

The findings of the Internal Ad-Hoc Audit Committee will have a major impact on Blatter, who is standing for re-election at the end of May.

As far as Blatter's future is concerned, the vultures are circling, and though they may still be distant specks in the sky they are now visible.

A senior Fifa source said Blatter began Thursday's emergency committee in confrontational mood, stating demands for an investigations committee were "unacceptable".

The source said: "The president tried to argue the committee could not be formed under Fifa statutes but he was defeated on that point.

"It did not even go to a vote - the mood was overwhelmingly in favour of setting up the committee."

The opposition to Blatter is led by three vice-presidents: Lennart Johansson of Sweden, Korea's Chung Mong-Joon and African confederation leader Issa Hayatou.

Johansson in particular has been vocal about the need for greater transparency within Fifa, and has called on Blatter to make public his salary.

The audit committee will have the power to call on independent experts for help and, importantly, will not include any members of the Fifa finance committee, who tend to be in the Blatter camp.

Blazer, Teixeira and Leoz are all Blatter supporters, but it is likely they will be in a minority on the committee.

More problems are showing on the horizon for Blatter.

So far, he has been the only person to announce he is standing for the presidential election but Hayatou, from Cameroon, is expected to announce his candidature at the African Football Confederation congress in Cairo at the end of next week.

Furthermore, the emergency meeting did not raise allegation that Blatter supporters gave cash for votes during the 1998 presidential election campaign, and that matter could be raised at the executive committee today.